why they stood there. They answered, they were going to the Celestial City, but knew not which of these ways to take. “Follow me,” said the man, “it is thither that I am going.” So they followed him in the way that but now came into the road, which by degrees turned, and turned them so far from the city that they desired to go to, that in a little time their faces were turned away from it; yet they followed him. But, by and by, before they were aware, he led them both within the compass of a net, in which they were both so entangled that they knew not what to do; and with that the white robe fell off the black man’s back. Then they saw where they were. Wherefore there they lay crying some time, for they could not get themselves out.
Chr. Then said Christian to his fellow, Now do I see myself in an error. Did not the shepherds bid us beware of the Flatterer? As is the saying of the wise man, so we have found it this day: “A man that flattereth his neighbor, spreadeth a net for his feet.”
Hope. They also gave us a note of directions about the way, for our more sure finding thereof; but therein we have also forgotten to read, and have not kept ourselves from the paths of the destroyer. Here David was wiser than we; for saith he, “Concerning the works of men, by the word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.” Thus they lay bewailing themselves in the net. At last they espied a Shining One coming towards them, with a whip of small cords in his hand. When he was come to the place where they were, he asked them whence they came, and what they did there. They told him that they were poor pilgrims going to Zion, but were led out of their way by a black man clothed in white, who bid us, said they, follow him, for he was going thither,
